War novel
A war novel or military fiction is a novel about war. It is a novel in which the primary action takes place on a battlefield, or in a civilian setting (or home front), where the characters are preoccupied with the preparations for, suffering the effects of, or recovering from war. Many war novels are historical novels.
19th century war novels[edit]
The war novel came of age during the nineteenth century, with works like Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma (1839), which features the Battle of Waterloo, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869), about the Napoleonic Wars in Russia, and Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage (1895), which deals with the American Civil War. All of these works feature realistic depictions of major battles, scenes of wartime horror and atrocities, and significant insights into the nature of heroism and cowardice, as well as the exploration of moral questions.
Vietnam and later wars[edit]
After World War II, the war that has attracted the greatest number of novelists is the Vietnam War. Graham Greene's The Quiet American was the first novel to explore the origins of the Vietnam war in the French colonial atmosphere of the 1950s. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is a cycle of Vietnam vignettes that reads like a novel. The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh is a poignant account of the war from the Vietnamese perspective.[note 2]
In the wake of postmodernism and the absence of wars equalling the magnitude of the two world wars, the majority of war novelists have concentrated on how memory and the ambiguities of time affect the meaning and experience of war. In her Regeneration Trilogy, British novelist Pat Barker reimagines World War I from a contemporary perspective. Ian McEwan's novels Black Dogs and Atonement take a similarly retrospective approach to World War II, including such events as the British retreat from Dunkirk in 1940 and the Nazi invasion of France. The work of W. G. Sebald, most notably Austerlitz, is a postmodern inquiry into Germany's struggle to come to terms with its troubled past.
Some contemporary novels emphasize action and intrigue above thematic depth. Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October is a technically detailed account of submarine espionage during the Cold War, and many of John le Carré's spy novels are basically war novels for an age in which bureaucracy often replaces open combat. Another adaptation is the apocalyptic Christian novel, which focuses on the final showdown between universal forces of good and evil. Tim LaHaye is the author most readily associated with this genre. Many fantasy novels, too, use the traditional war novel as a departure point for depictions of fictional wars in imaginary realms.
Iran–Iraq War was also an interesting case for novelists. Events and memoirs of Iran–Iraq War has led to unique war novels. Noureddin, Son of Iran and One Woman's War: Da (Mother) are among the many novels which reminds the horrible situation of war. Many of these novels are based on the interviews performed with participants and their memoirs.
The post 9/11 literary world has produced few war novels that address current events in the War on Terrorism. One example is Chris Cleave's Incendiary (2005), which made headlines after its publication,[18] for appearing to anticipate the 7 July 2005 London bombings.